Inside the Ring of Fire: A tale of two First Nations and a road that could change everything

WEBEQUIE AND NESKANTAGA FIRST NATIONS — This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

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I. THE WARNING

The ancestors knew.

First Nation elders understood the south would march north eventually. They knew it would come in waves, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Those ancestors told their kids, who told theirs, and so on until today.

The south has already carved many changes. Decades ago, Webequie First Nation and Neskantaga First Nation were one community. The southern import of Christianity split them apart. Neskantaga is largely Catholic. The Anglicans left for Webequie. The family ties remain, though so many were torn away by the residential school system. They are cousins.

Today, leaders in both communities say their people live in conditions the rest of Canada would find unacceptable. Both communities are off-grid, stuck relying on diesel for power and reliant on an ever-shrinking winter road season that isolates them further.

Now the south is hastening its march again. Canada’s north is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the world. A global trade war has political eyes in Toronto, Ottawa and even Washington, D.C., on critical minerals buried underground.

Again Webequie and Neskantaga find themselves charting diverging courses.

One seeks to harness the onslaught, embrace resource extraction and lift itself out of poverty. The other would first prioritize basic improvements, like getting clean drinking water out of the taps for the first time in 30 years. Some plan an active blockade. To them, it is a deeply personal fight.

But no matter what, that latest wave is here, galvanized by warming temperatures and a feeling of geopolitical urgency. As the elders foretold, the south is coming for what’s hidden deep within the land.

They are coming for the Ring of Fire. And, inevitably, they are building a road.

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II. THE ISLAND

The raging fire lit the sky bright orange. Black smoke billowed for days. Embers floated onto the small fly-in community, on an island some 600 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

Chief Cornelius Wabasse could feel the heat from across the lake. The fire jumped to the island as it breathed to life, ultimately consuming more than 5,370 hectares of forest.

But the winds were with Webequie First Nation.

“We were lucky it didn’t change its direction from the south to the north,” Wabasse says. “If that would have happened, this community would have burned.”

The fire ran the other way, giving the federal and provincial governments time to organize an evacuation.

Nine cabins were lost across the lake, along with several boats and all-terrain vehicles. Fortune shone on Webequie, as the only way off the island at that time of year is by air or water.

There is no bridge, but one day Webequie hopes to build one.

Helicopters dart across the sky on a wet and dreary October day. Charred spruce and birch trees stretch for dozens of kilometres to the east. From the window of one chopper, a planned road to the Ring of Fire comes into view. There is a clearing where trees have been chopped near the first proposed water crossing.

In this part of Ontario, a couple hundred kilometres southwest of James Bay, there is as much water as land. The earth morphs from solid rock in the west to muskeg in the east. Underneath it all is said to be one of the richest deposits of critical minerals and rare metals the world over.

Outdoor shoes are not allowed inside Webequie’s band office, much like at the nearby school and in the community’s lone store. The floors in all three are spotless.

Chief Wabasse sits at his desk, sporting tinted glasses and a black vest over a black sweater. An autographed photo of him with Ontario Premier Doug Ford hangs on the wall. A hand-carved, wooden bald eagle is perched atop a filing cabinet.

Wabasse has been chief of Webequie for the past 15 years. He knows change is coming, and he wants to have a hand on the wheel when it arrives.

“Our elders used to say that there will come a time when things are going to come from the south, meaning development, and we have to be ready,” he says.

“Our well-being has to be at a favourable level because we have so many issues in our community, including overcrowding in our homes and mental health issues.”

Wabasse is a quiet and serious man. He kept his head down and his mouth quiet when Ottawa and Queen’s Park passed laws in the spring that gave themselves extraordinary powers to remove barriers to development, at the cost of environmental regulations and Indigenous consultation. The laws sparked outrage among many First Nations, who saw it as an existential threat to their way of life.

Wabasse, however, has a different take: “We don’t need them,” he says of the new laws, though the community is studying them to see if they bear any advantages.

“Our elders used to say that we need to work with the government in order for our community to prosper,” says Wabasse. “We need to work with all parties, even with industry or any other parties that want to work with us. We need to work together, we can’t always fight and go into legal battles.”

The First Nation is leading the provincial environmental assessment and the federal impact assessment on the Webequie Supply Road, a 107-kilometre gravel road to a proposed mine. From there, the road would connect to two other proposed roads, which would ultimately link Webequie and another First Nation, Marten Falls, to the provincial highway system. The two First Nations are working together on a similar study for the Northern Road Link, while Marten Falls is leading the study of the third road.

The province has recently made deals with both First Nations — the details, in Webequie’s case, having been hammered out over pizza at the premier’s home in Etobicoke — and the federal government. Webequie is hoping construction will start not long after the ground thaws in June. Marten Falls eyes August for its own construction to begin.

A road could bring problems: drugs, alcohol, hunters from the south. But it could also bring prosperity. The community wants its autonomy, and Wabasse firmly believes that starts with a bridge off the island.

The chief has four children. He lost one. The other three live in Thunder Bay, and though he is often in the city for work, he misses them. “I’d love to have them here and all the other band members who want to return, but we don’t have enough houses or jobs.”

About 850 people live in Webequie, with another 200 off reserve. It needs 30 more homes to ease intense overcrowding. Five units were built last year and 10 the year before. They’re hoping to build 20 next year, but it all depends on the length of the winter road season, which is down to about a month.

For a long time, Webequie’s people didn’t worry about the winter road. Winter usually arrived in November. The community would begin packing down the road by December and driving off the island on an ice road by January. It would last two or more months.

“The weather is warming, the climate is changing,” Wabasse says. “These days, it doesn’t get cold until December or January.”

Diesel trucked in along the winter road powers the community for the year. Despite recent upgrades to a Hydro One diesel station at the airport, every year, the community burns through that fuel before it can be replenished again. The remainder has to be flown in.

Webequie and Neskantaga First Nation are among five communities in the Ring of Fire region that still rely on diesel to generate power. People don’t want to rely on this fossil fuel. It’s dirty. It pollutes the air. But Webequie will need a lot more before a transmission line promised by the province arrives.

Everything else has to be brought in on the winter road or by air. Food. Building supplies. A 12-pack of Coca-Cola runs $36 at the only store in town. The service fee to take out money at Royal Bank, the only bank in town, is $15. Gasoline, which is also flown in to feed the 200 or so trucks in Webequie, costs $3.09 a litre.

Wabasse takes a deep breath when asked about nearby First Nations that take an opposite position on development. He respects that others do what they feel is best for their community, and he hopes for the same from them in return.

“We’re hoping that at some point in time we’ll move forward and they’ll begin to understand why we are doing this,” he says, adding that many communities in the north share similar needs that governments and industry can address.

Wabasse explains that his community members view the land, the water and all the resources of the area as their own, to benefit from however they want to. That is their sovereignty.

“In our community, when people were living off the land, they were travelling, fishing and hunting, mostly,” he says. “Living off the land is different now, where we have the resources, like the forestry and also the minerals that are out there. It’s a new way of living off the land. And that’s how we see it.”

The old way of doing things does not always work in a warming world. It is harder to leave the island. Blue ice, which is strong and comes from extended periods of cold, is increasingly giving way to slush ice that results from warmer conditions and is half as strong, community members say.

“If the weather is mild, we don’t get that much blue ice. You need at least 17 inches for our groomers to cross, and those are light vehicles,” says Harry Wabasse, a councillor.

Groomers are now kept off the island to speed annual construction of the rest of the winter road, while blue ice must now be topped off with packed slush ice to achieve a strong enough base for fully loaded transport trucks.

The lack of a bridge hampers development. The gravel pit is off the island. It is needed for virtually all construction. Lower-priority work cannot happen. Dirt roads go without being upgraded, kicking up an incredible amount of dust in the dry months, and sometimes becoming unnavigable due to mud in the wet months.

The community is thinking of other ways to modernize. It has received a provincial grant to help build a sawmill. About half the community’s homes are heated with wood stoves. The wood being cleared for road construction, and from areas affected by the wildfires, could be used as an energy source.

Bob Wabasse, the community’s champion for energy improvements, is also looking at using provincial funding for solar panels to help power the school and band offices.

“We can’t do any of this without a road and a way off the island,” he says.

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III. THE ROAD

The rotors on four helicopters whir to life one after the other on a gravel tarmac at Webequie’s airport. Temperatures hover around freezing. Snow and sleet from an hour ago has abated. Clouds float 300 metres above the ground and the other side of the remote lake is visible. It’s good enough to fly.

The road crew’s early morning meeting is complete. The helicopters lift off with scientists and engineers on board as they carry out the painstaking work of carving 107 kilometres through solid esker rock and soft muskeg in some of the most remote conditions in the country.

Several dozen members of a crew from AtkinsRealis are flying out dozens of kilometres to various points along the proposed route.

“We’re doing a pretty intensive drilling program, which is drilling small holes deep into the ground to give us an idea of the different layers of soil and then the engineers take that information and use that to help design the road,” says Don Parkinson, a senior consultation specialist.

The idea is simple enough. But it is a complex operation to carry out in the middle of nowhere.

First, “cutters” take a few days to clear the dense forest for a 45- by 55-metre area so helicopters can land. Crews then attach a claw to a 30-metre-long line that is tethered to the helicopter so the pilot can move the fallen trees. Clearing takes several days. Next, they set up a drill rig that weighs several tonnes. The crews bring an inordinate amount of gear: tools, auger, compressor, generator, water tote. When the drilling is done, they will do it all again at a new spot.

The AtkinsRealis team undertakes this work from mid-September until the weather turns nasty in early November, with plans to return in January once the deep freeze sets in. The 30-plus crew members from all parts of Ontario do their work in shifts, rotating two weeks on and two weeks off.

After construction begins in earnest, the two-lane gravel road will take four to six years to complete, and it will require six bridges and 25 culverts to cross various bodies of water. It will run northwest-southeast for 51 kilometres from Webequie’s airport to the next segment, which will run 56 kilometres east-west to McFaulds Lake and the Eagle’s Nest mineral exploration site.

The road is expected to last 75 years, after which major refurbishments will be needed. The province is expected to spend $663 million, though who will own the road and who will be allowed to use it are questions for future negotiations. Ontario is reviewing its costing for this and the two other proposed roads, which combined will run up at least a $2-billion bill.

Construction was originally scheduled for 2028. Now it is expected to begin next year. And the all-important environmental assessment is expected to be complete by January.

The delicate drilling dance is underway on a cold, grey Friday morning in late October. Scott Olshanoski sits at a desk in the living room of a bunkhouse built by Webequie that looks like a massive school portable. The company is paying the community several million dollars for the accommodations over the course of the project.

The crew’s four helicopter’s light up a map on the computer Olshanoski’s eyes are glued to. A Garmin inReach Mini dangles on the wall nearby. It allows for text messaging via satellite, though those messages can take 15 minutes to arrive.

Cell phones do not work in Webequie, or anywhere within hundreds of kilometres. The drill teams carry a Starlink satellite receiver, battery packs and a generator. It means they can get high-speed internet in the middle of a peat field.

“They can phone me if there’s a problem,” Olshanoski says.

Fortunately, today there have not been any major issues. The pilots are with a biologist. They are sweeping the work area in a grid pattern looking for boreal caribou, which move through the area in the fall.

A draft report of the environmental assessment suggests road work should not pose significant threats to plant and animal life. But construction and operation is “expected to provide predators such as wolves increased access to the caribou, particularly where the road traverses natural movement corridors,” it says. The province says 5,000 caribou remain, but advocates believe the number is much lower. Wolverines are also under threat.

“We’ve had a couple times where we’ve seen caribou so we’ve backed off, returned to camp here and then we can’t work at that site that day,” Olshanoski says.

Environmental activists warn that further development, including roads and mines, could threaten an ecologically sensitive area already facing turbulence due to warmer temperatures and drought. The James Bay and Hudson Bay Lowlands are among the largest peatland complexes in the world, storing more than 35 billion tonnes of carbon.

Anna Baggio, the conservation director of the Wildlands League, says by phone that she understands why many First Nations seek to connect to the highway system in the south.

But she says she believes Webequie would be better served by an east-west road rather than one that veers north to a mining site. And while her organization is not against mining, she believes enough are being built elsewhere to satisfy the market.

In her mind, the problem with more aggressively developing the Ring of Fire is simple:

“Environmentally, it’s going to be insane,” she says. “We just can’t afford to have all that disturbance and still somehow get to net zero by 2050.”

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IV: THE MINE

Jake Carter lifts the helicopter off the ground from the Webequie airport and heads east. It is a 40-minute flight to Wyloo’s Eagle’s Nest mining camp in the heart of the Ring of Fire.

The forest blackened by wildfire gives way to a mix of evergreen and peatlands. Carter points out vast bogs and fens that paint the ground. From the sky, the fens look like decrepit fingers lined up side by side, surrounded by peat. The look like ripples of sand on a beach.

“That formation occurs because the water underneath flows perpendicular,” Carter explains. “There’s a lot of water up here, but under it all is a lot more rock.”

In 2007, Noront announced it discovered a large deposit of nickel, platinum, copper and other critical minerals. Dick Nemis, the Sudbury-born lawyer turned miner and head of Noront, named it the Ring of Fire, partially due to its crescent shape and his love of Johnny Cash.

Australian mining giant Wyloo and Juno Corp., a Canadian junior mining company formed in 2019, own the vast majority of the more than 40,000 claims staked in the Ring of Fire, though two other mining companies, Teck Resources and Canada Chrome Corporation, also hold a significant number of claims.

The companies say they’ve found a wide variety of critical mineral and base metal deposits, including nickel, copper, chromite, titanium, platinum, vanadium, iron and gold. They are used to make all types of batteries, cell phones, stainless steel, semi-conductors, drones, satellites, data centres and computers.

There is a heavy defence component, too. Juno, for example, says it met with U.S. defence officials for the first time in May to discuss how titanium and vanadium can be used to fill aerospace supply chain gaps.

In the distance, the mining camp comes into view. Wyloo’s field team completed two years of work this past summer, and now leaves the site empty save for periodic checks. Over the summer, Indigenous protesters who seek to disrupt the mine’s construction discussed the possibility of moving in. It did not come to pass.

An area the size of a square kilometre has been cleared. There are dozens of buildings. Crew members sleep in orange and white Weatherhaven shelters. There’s a kitchen and maintenance shop and a main office, many of those structures built with trailers. There’s also a sauna, a small fitness room and a recreation room.

Some 1,100 kilometres southeast of Eagle’s Nest, Luca Giacovazzi sits in a small office in downtown Toronto, the mining finance capital of the world.

The CEO of Wyloo is in town to visit his Canadian team and to meet with stakeholders, including provincial politicians and some First Nations. A massive photograph of the Ring of Fire region hangs on a wall. Several years ago, Wyloo began looking around for major nickel projects, Giacovazzi says. The company zeroed in on Noront’s Eagle’s Nest.

“When we looked at it, we were like, ‘This is one of the best nickel ore bodies in the world. Why is it not built?'” Giacovazzi says. “It was discovered a long time ago. Why is it still in the ground?”

The deeper he looked, the more he liked what he saw. It had support from two First Nations and several years of regulatory work already completed. That, and the belief that Eagle’s Nest is a “world-class ore body,” made the play a no-brainer. Wyloo, owned by billionaire Andrew Forrest, got into a bidding war in 2021 with BHP, the world’s biggest mining company, for Eagle’s Nest. Wyloo won. It paid more than $600 million and took Noront private.

For several years, Wyloo wondered if they’d ever see movement on the project, but recent events have made the company more bullish.

“It has started to feel more like we can start to think about timelines and start managing timelines,” Giacovazzi says.

“I don’t want it to ever come across as it’s all done and dusted and this is definitely happening, but we are definitely seeing the right signs and the right things happening.”

Giacovazzi points directly to recent partnership deals Webequie First Nation and Marten Falls First Nation signed with the province as signs to move the project forward.

Each First Nation is to receive $39.5 million. Some of that will be used to build community centres, repair the airports and add mental health supports, while some will be used for materials to begin road construction. In return, both First Nations reasserted their existing commitment to the Ring of Fire mining project and pledged to complete environmental assessments for the roads by early 2026.

Meanwhile, Wyloo is wrapping up a feasibility study on the mine and its claims in the region, which Giacovazzi says has cost tens of millions of dollars.

He pulls out a rendering of what they are designing: two large underground mines. The first is the original, the Eagle’s Nest deposit. It will connect through an underground drift, or passageway, to the second ore body, Blackbird.

Wyloo envisions twin portals heading underground, one of which would be used to transport ore to the surface on a conveyor. While a mine shaft is built, the plan is to crush the aggregate pulled from underground to create a foundation for the buildings.

The company aims to build a concentrator to process the nickel and copper; a treatment plant to recycle the water it uses; and a plant that will mix its tailings into a cement paste that will be returned underground and stored in voids in the rock. The Eagle’s Nest tailings would be stored below the “very high” water table in the area, as well as in voids at the Blackbird site.

Wyloo has already drilled about 1.6 kilometres deep on Eagle’s Nest as it pulls out core samples. That confirms a belief that the mine will run much longer than a decade.

“We haven’t reached the bottom, so we know we’re going to go for at least 15 years,” Giacovazzi says.

The mine will take about three years to construct, he says, though they can build and produce ore concurrently.

“Is it a high-quality world-class asset? Absolutely. Is it the first? Yes. Is there more to come? Probably. That’s a sensitive thing, though, because I don’t think you can go into this thinking it’s now open season. I think it will be step by step, and I think that’s why we take it really seriously that we’re the first, and we do not want to mess it up,” he says.

The company has seven ore bodies in total in its portfolio in the Ring of Fire, but the company is focused on Eagle’s Nest and Blackbird. They also have Black Thor, a big chrome ore body; a smaller one called Nikka, which is a copper-zinc ore body. There is also Thunderbird, a vanadium-titanium ore body.

“If there was ever a shortage of vanadium in the world, or it became a critical mineral, or anything like that, this is one of the few places in the world you can find it,” says Giacovazzi.

Several thousand workers will be needed to build the mine, and the company will employ about 600 miners once its operational. The company plans to train and employ Indigenous workers as part of the workforce.

Giacovazzi says he tells First Nation chiefs that running a mine is similar to running any other remote community.

“Within that, there’s opportunity, because we’re going to have to subcontract all those elements,” he said. “And we actually feel that they’re best placed in a whole lot of cases to take on those roles.”

One thing is for sure, he says: “It’s going to be a generational mine.”

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VI. THE RESISTANCE

The sun shines bright on an unusually warm late October day in Neskantaga First Nation. The thermometer reads 10 C as Luke Moulton gets his chopper airborne. He has been piloting in the bush for three years. “It’s a life-changing job,” he says.

He banks right and whips the machine up to 160 kilometres an hour as he follows the twists and turns of the mighty Attawapiskat River. A few boats chug along the water below, Neskantaga hunters out looking for moose on the riverbanks. Chris Katsarov Luna, a Canadian Press photographer on board, has never seen a moose in the wild.

“You’ll see one today,” says Marcus Moonias, an employment co-ordinator for the band office. “This is moose country.”

“I saw 15 yesterday,” Moulton says. “No caribou, though.”

Without spotting any moose, the helicopter weaves its way to a settlement two First Nations are building some 90 kilometres downriver from Neskantaga. The burgeoning encampment sits on a tail of the southern tip of the Ring of Fire. It is where one of the bridges of the Northern Road Link will be built. Neskantaga and Attawapiskat First Nation plan to be there whenever the roadworkers arrive.

Back in June, Jeronimo Kataquapit became fed up with politicos in Ottawa and Toronto. The 20-year-old from Attawapiskat First Nation was offended that the powerful figures of the south were coming for the bounty of the north. He quickly organized information sessions about new federal and provincial laws — the ones designed to remove regulatory barriers, including what many Indigenous people would consider basic consultation — and decided to do something about it. He would head up river from his home along the James Bay coast to the Ring of Fire.

He, his parents and his brother stuffed gear into two 24-foot freighter canoes, each with a 25-horsepower motor, and set out with supplies, including a generator and a Starlink receiver for satellite internet, for an extended trip. The family took several weeks and travelled more than 400 kilometres upriver. They called the movement “Here We Stand.”

“This is our home,” Jeronimo Kataquapit said in mid-June from the canoe. “This is our own territory, not just Attawapiskat’s, but every nation in the area.”

The settlement is called Shaykachiwikaan, or where the river meets the rocks. The only sound piercing the silence is water rushing through the rapids. Sturgeon, pickerel, whitefish and “monster pike” dominate the waters and help feed the people. Two white teepees gleam in the bright sun, nestled within the bush on the north bank of the river.

Two bald eagles soar nearby as the helicopter lands at a high point in the middle of the water. James Kataquapit and Monique Edwards, Jeronimo’s parents, motor over in one of the freighter canoes, the bright orange Attawapiskat First Nation flag with a silhouette of a wolf flapping at the front of the canoe.

At the settlement, a printed notice nailed to a birch tree declares who owns the land.

“Neskantaga First Nation takes the position that its traditional territory is under its control, and approval to operate in our territory cannot be given by the government,” the sign reads.

The couple is joined by David Kataquapit and his wife, Lucie, who came to the encampment in August.

“We want to ensure that the generations to come, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, even the ones are not going to meet, have what we have today,” Edwards says.

“When you build a road or build a mine, it’s irreversible. It will affect the land. It will affect the water. Just look around. It’s pristine. It’s untouched.”

Edwards says elders who have since passed away said no to a road before in order to protect the land and water and their sovereignty.

For her, the answer is still no, even if there are cousins who have decided to row in a different direction.

“Our treaty rights are being trampled on without even consulting us,” she says. Though she adds: “We’ll leave it to the future generations what they want to do.”

The smell of burning wood fills the air. David Kataquapit has jury-rigged three wood-burning stoves out of old industrial steel drums with an angle grinder. One is set up in the eight-by-five-metre kitchen they built, complete with a makeshift chimney next to counters fashioned from birch trees.

“Not bad, eh?” he says with a big smile as he serves coffee made with water from the river.

They pour moose stew in bowls for lunch. They bagged a moose upstream a few weeks back and another one a few days prior. Moulton, the helicopter pilot, flew one back to Neskantaga, the massive animal strapped to a long line.

“Mother Earth is good to us,” Kataquapit says.

They are building a full-sized cabin, and they also have plans to build an encampment near the Eagle’s Nest mining site itself.

“The whole idea here is to tell those mining companies, both governments, Ontario and federal, that we’re here,” Edwards says. “You just can’t come and just not tell us what you’re doing, like just brush us aside. We’ve been here long before you have, and this is all we have left, this pristine land.”

A float plane lands soon after with a contingent from Neskantaga.

Coleen Moonias, a councillor, has brought her three-year-old granddaughter to visit. “It feels refreshing, I feel connected, I feel the brightness in life here and that’s healing to us,” she says.

Another councillor, Bradley Moonias, says he’s noticed changes to the environment over his lifetime. The Attawapiskat River is much lower than it was when he was a kid, making travel much trickier in parts.

The dreaded October weather has now shifted a month to November. There have been far fewer ducks over the past several years. “And now we see swans and lots of cranes, had never seen them until a few years ago,” he says.

Late in the afternoon, the contingent packs up and leaves. Back on the chopper, Marcus Moonias points out old campsites they’ve found along the riverbank and several burial grounds, including one where his grandather is buried. Neskantaga officials are scouring the land for signs of their ancestors and detailed maps hang on the community centre showing what they found. A rusted out makeshift stove. A decades-old snowmobile.

“Moose!” Moulton yells.

The pilot immediately banks right and dives down. There, on the bank of a creek branching off the river, are two bull moose. Katsarov Luna smiles as he shoots photographs of the massive animals.

“Welcome to the north!” Marcus Moonias says with a laugh, slapping the photographer on the shoulder.

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VII: THE HOLDOUTS

The helicopter lands by the point in Neskantaga, just west of the Ring of Fire. Cellphones do not work in this community, either, but everyone has a walkie-talkie. They call them “black radios,” or BRs.

“The journalists are here,” Eli Moonias says over the black radio. He is a jack-of-all trades in the community and has been co-ordinating activities and work at the settlement.

Everyone in the First Nation is happy to tell a reporter and photographer about the community’s many problems. They have lived under a boil-water advisory for more than 30 years. About 450 people live in Neskantaga, and about half of them have never been able to drink water from the taps. The federal government flies in bottled water every few days. They’ve long had problems with both the water treatment plant and the pipes that deliver water to the community’s 80-odd homes.

Like many other First Nations across the country, Neskantaga was ravaged by the residential and day school system. Decades ago, the federal government, in concert with the Catholic and Protestant churches, ripped First Nation children away from their families and forced them to speak English as part of a language eradication regime.

There is no high school, so young teens have to leave for cities like Thunder Bay if they want an education, a move that carries with it many dangers, including drugs, alcohol and mental health crises.

A state of emergency remains in place 11 years after it was declared due to a spate of suicides. A disproportionate number of teenagers are buried in the cemetery.

The community has also been evacuated many times over the years, which was the case again this year. Spilled diesel combined with the spring thaw run-off on an unusually warm April day and seeped into Neskantaga’s nursing station. It was the third year in a row the building was flooded. The diesel made it significantly worse.

On this October weekend, Chief Gary Quisess is in Ottawa talking to the federal government about fixing Neskantaga’s lone health-care building, months after the spill. A board nailed across the door is spray painted “CLOSED!!” in red.

“It will not survive the winter,” Quisess later says in a phone call.

The First Nation opened a temporary clinic in a house, but it’s subpar it and stopped a community member from moving in, Quisess says.

“There’s no confidentiality, there’s no privacy,” he says.

The community is spending so much time putting out immediate fires, it has little energy left to plan long term. That is one of the driving forces behind the community’s reluctance to discuss a road or a mine: they want some of their problems solved first. And they don’t trust the government. They’ve heard promises of prosperity before.

“The land, the water, the animals, the fish, that’s our prosperity. The government is pushing the prosperity for the development. I don’t see nothing here in my community,” he says.

The cost of living is “crazy,” Quisess says. A package of eight burgers burgers costs $55.99 at the lone store in town.

He realizes the community may need a road someday in the future. He knows the winter road season is getting shorter because of climate change.

“But we haven’t discussed anything yet in regards to the road because the community is not prepared.”

Neskantaga also needs a new community centre with an arena to give people more things to do, the chief says.

During the visit, the Toronto Blue Jays are on an epic run that community members have been watching with keen interest. The Jays beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 11-4 in Game 1 of the World Series.

But that’s not what’s lighting up the black radios the next day. It’s a commercial they saw on TV during the game. The province has released a Ring of Fire ad that uses Ford’s slogan from the 2025 election: “Protect Ontario” and makes a sales pitch on development.

“What about protect Neskantaga?” Marcus Moonias says. “I’m so mad about it.”

Over a fire on a hilltop above the gravel pit, Chris Moonias and a group of friends feast on pan-fried moose meat and dumplings. The former chief of Neskantaga has big plans to help young people as part of his new role in child and family services.

“I almost threw my television at the wall,” he says about the commercial.

“He’s making us, or anyone against the Ring of Fire, the enemy,” he adds about Ford. “He’s being a bully.”

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VIII: THE DEAL

Greg Rickford leafs through the menu at a pho restaurant in Etobicoke, the seat of power in Doug Ford’s Ontario.

Much of the Ontario Indigenous affairs minister’s career has been spent in northern Ontario. He lived on First Nation reserves back when he worked as a nurse, and later, a lawyer. He entered politics and cut his teeth under Prime Minister Stephen Harper after first getting elected as a Conservative MP in the riding of Kenora in 2008.

When the country moved on from Harper in 2015, voters also chose a Liberal to represent them in Kenora. Rickford shifted gears. In 2018, he easily won the provincial Kenora riding and has become Ford’s man of the north.

Rickford orders the seafood pho — “It’s incredible here,” he says — before laying out the province’s vision.

“Even in communities that have appeared to be not in support of the Ring of Fire, they just have different ideas about when, where, and what,” he says.

“We’ve started to get consensus around a few items: diesel generation is bad and winter road seasons are shrinking.”

Rickford notes that First Nations in northern central Ontario are the last ones in the province that remain off the province’s electrical grid, something the province wants to change. First Nations have also told him they want expanded airport terminals, longer, paved runways and community centres. They want a driveable corridor to reach services and programs in places like Thunder Bay, he says.

Fortunes began to change for a road to the Ring of Fire early this year. Ford included the region’s development in his platform during the snap election he called during a frigid February more than a year early. He cruised to victory with his campaign focused on fighting U.S. President Donald Trump.

Inside Ford’s office, they wanted to move fast. Several cabinet members and Ford’s office began working on an aggressive and ambitious omnibus bill that would clear the regulatory path for big projects, particularly mines. In addition to streamlining the approval and permitting process inside government, it would strip away certain protections for species at risk.

Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli added another idea: designating areas as so-called special economic zones where laws, under provincial or municipal power, could be suspended.

While the government expected blowback from environmentalists, it was caught off guard by the intense reaction and condemnation by the majority of the 133 First Nations across Ontario. Protesters descended upon Queen’s Park, where they beat drums in the halls of the legislature and rained boos upon the Progressive Conservative government in the chamber. Chiefs threatened blockades of roads, railways and mines if the bill became law.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government added fuel to those protests when, after his own election victory, it introduced its own law, known as Bill C-5, that allows cabinet to quickly grant federal approvals for big projects deemed to be in the national interest by sidestepping existing laws. Though Indigenous protests sprouted up in Ottawa, too, by late June both laws were in force.

The road to the Ring of Fire is not on the federal government’s major project list and the province is mum on designating it a special economic zone, though documents unearthed through freedom-of-information laws show the province planned to “take immediate action” to do so once the law passed.

Not long after the bill became law, Ford said First Nations should not keep not keep coming “hat in hand” to the province if they say no to mining projects. That sparked a furor among many First Nations, who called the remarks racist. Ford soon apologized.

The province backed off, and now has no plans to designate the Ring of Fire a special economic zone, though it remains an option if Wyloo needs help to speed construction.

That’s because they’ve “effectively” created a special economic zone through the partnership agreements with Webequie and Marten Falls, a senior source in Ford’s office says.

“We don’t need it,” says the source, who was not authorized to share the details publicly. “But did the idea help give us leverage? Yes, it certainly did, and led directly to community partnerships.”

Behind closed doors, the province is willing to give First Nations pretty much whatever they want, including a series of new roads that would connect even more remote, fly-in communities. The catch: they would need to support the development of the mine.

The province has been asking Ottawa to join its pursuit of the Ring of Fire development for more than a decade and asking for investment in the planned roads. Ford’s office has stepped up pressure on the file since Carney took office in the spring.

Ottawa has not signalled any investment is incoming, and it has not referred the Ring of Fire to its newly minted major projects office except to deem it a “potential region of interest.” That is fine with Queen’s Park — “The feds would have taken over the project and we don’t want that,” the source says.

But the premier’s office source says the office and its CEO Dawn Farrell have offered help in the form of a “co-operation agreement.” The agreement seeks to streamline the project approval process to achieve “one project, one review,” a post from late November on the federal government’s Impact Assessment Agency of Canada says.

“Under this approach, federal and provincial governments work together to meet shared and respective responsibilities to protect the environment and Indigenous rights with the goal of a single assessment for a project,” the statement says. A public consultation period ends Dec. 15.

In a side deal on the Ring of Fire roads, the federal government has committed to completing its impact assessment on the same timeline as the province’s environmental assessment. The two governments aim to work together on assessments of navigable waters, species at risk and migratory birds, all long in the federal purview.

“This is huge, not just for the Ring of Fire, but for mining in general, and building roads and highways,” the premier’s office source says. “It will be 10 times more transformational than any major project.”

A senior federal government source, who likewise was not authorized to speak publicly about the deal, says it is all about eliminating duplication. The standards will remain stringent and rights and protections will be upheld, the source promises, including for the roads to the Ring of Fire.

The federal government has launched a regional assessment working group to better understand the impacts of development, but the province and Webequie and Marten Falls say it will not affect the road.

In a statement, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson says the region represents an “immense opportunity” but “dialogue is required” on how to advance infrastructure, including roads.

“As these conversations continue, our goal is to make sure any proposed infrastructure plan is responsible, reflects local and Indigenous priorities, and positions the region to benefit from the opportunities ahead,” he writes, though he doesn’t add specifics on how dialogue works when neighbouring communities with deep ties are on perpendicular tracks.

“We are actively working with Ontario to increase regulatory efficiency while maintaining high environmental standards and engaging local Indigenous communities.”

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IX: THE DREAM

The province now has a vision to extend the road west. Webequie has been tasked with setting up a table with other First Nations to discuss the possibilities. The cousins need to be convinced.

The province has drawn up a map of the proposed road that travels west from Webequie and would connect six other First Nations to the provincial highway system further southwest in Pickle Lake. But some First Nations, including Neskantaga, are not part of those plans.

“The secondary trunk line was born out of common sense that there should be more than just one route into it,” Rickford says. “And I certainly hope to get Neskantaga a road if they do want one. We really can help make their lives better.”

Chris Moonias, the former chief of Neskantaga, has long been a thorn in the side of the provincial government, and, quite literally, Ford’s loudest critic. He is a mountain of a man with an even bigger voice.

“There will be no Ring of Fire!” he bellowed one day two years ago from the public gallery high above the politicians at Queen’s Park. Security promptly booted him from the chamber.

On Nov. 18, Moonias thought he was receiving a prank call from Sol Mamakwa, his friend and the provincial New Democrat representative for the riding of Kiiwetinoong, which includes Neskantaga, Webequie and the Ring of Fire.

Then Moonias recognized the premier’s voice. Despite Moonias’s protestations that he was no longer chief, Ford was calling to urge Neskantaga to come to the table with other First Nations to discuss the road and the Ring of Fire.

“We need to be decision-makers because it’s Neskantaga First Nation territory,” Chris Moonias recalls telling Ford during the call, which he described as non-confrontational. “And he acknowledged that.”

Rickford recently talked to the current chief, Gary Quisess — who was none too impressed that Ford called his predecessor instead — and they had a frank discussion.

“They will need an all-season road one day. The winter road season will vanish quicker than we realize,” Rickford says. “We can’t be building the road in the middle of a climate crisis. … We have to be prepared.”

Quisess says he’s open to discussing that further, but his own vision is one in which Ford and Rickford visit the community itself to sit down as a treaty partner.

“The premier has to see how we live.”

These competing visions for the future have been playing large in Mamakwa’s mind. The member of provincial parliament has been a power broker in the push and pull over the region he represents. His own future has taken a recent turn.

On a mid-November day, he points out the beautiful, bold First Nation art all over his office.

The eagle feather from Garden River First Nation that he held for his historic address at Queen’s Park in his own language, Anishininiimowin, also called Oji-Cree. A mini birchbark canoe. Beaded neck ties representing different First Nations.

There’s one painting he keeps returning to: A brown hand reaches down from the sky over three orange and two green teepees on top of what looks like round brown home with a window. It is the work of his late wife, Pearl, who painted it in 2024 and told him to put it up in his Toronto office.

In May and June, Mamakwa, the lone First Nation member at Queen’s Park, had been in the middle of making trouble for Ford’s agenda.

He became the ring-leader of a movement fighting Bill 5 by bringing the north to the south. First Nations visited Queen’s Park every week for more than a month making their voices heard.

Mamakwa, who hails from Kingfisher Lake First Nation, had a big summer ahead. First Nation leaders and grassroots community members from all parts of the province lined up behind him. They hatched detailed plans to block highways, railways and mines. Quietly, several First Nations prepared to take over Wyloo’s mining site in the Ring of Fire. The fight would move from the marble- and wood-lined halls of Queen’s Park to the land.

Then Pearl got sick one June day after a sudden onslaught of back pain that brought her to a hospital two days in a row. An infection gripped her body and didn’t let go. She died in overflow bed No. 8, a spare room in the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre. A coroner’s investigation revealed Pearl had a heart condition.

“Her heart could not handle it,” Mamakwa says.

The ring-leading came to a standstill when the grief hit him.

He spent a lot of time on the land. He spent 10 days at his brother’s camp in October with his children and grandchildren. Mamakwa beams when he talks about his grandson shooting his first moose.

“The land is healing,” he says. “So is my family.”

Mamakwa began easing back into work, and back into the headwinds of a government that is hellbent on marching north.

On the November day Ford called Chris Moonias, about an hour later, the premier strolled over to Mamakwa after question period.

“I just spoke to the big guy up north,” Ford told him.

Santa, Mamakwa thought, but didn’t say. Ford seemingly couldn’t recall Chris Moonias’s or Neskantaga’s name in the moment, but Mamakwa knew who he meant. Moonias quickly alerted him to their call.

Ford told Mamakwa he wants to get Neskantaga a road. Mamakwa said he supports Neskantaga’s right to decide. Their right to determine their own future — to carve their own path, to listen to the ancestors. Even if the road they aim to travel is different from the one their cousins wish to pave.

Mamakwa looks at Pearl’s painting every time he smudges, thinking of her and their four children.

“What the hell does it mean?” he says, struggling to talk. “She never explained it, but I have to figure out what it means. I don’t know if it’s the Creator’s hand or her hand. I don’t know if this is her, I don’t know if this is me and my poor kids. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Bigger dreams are starting to enter Mamakwa’s mind. He envisions a day when First Nations unite across the country. There are about three dozen ridings in Canada where First Nation make up the majority of voters, he says. He thinks one day a First Nation political party could hold the balance of power in Ottawa, like a Bloc Québécois of the north.

When asked whether he is opposed to development — to the roads that could change everything, to the mine they would lead to, and the Ring of Fire resource extraction that the southerners have tried to make synonymous with the fight against America — he thinks for a long time.

“The problem is once you build a road, there’s no going back.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2025.

Liam Casey, The Canadian Press